I have been running this league for more than 3 years with a brief government-enforced break in the middle when no one was allowed to go to shopping malls let alone stick their fingers in what is bound to be disgusting bowling balls that never get cleaned.
We have had our ups and downs over the years but some things happen every now and then that make me lose a bit of faith in my fellow adult participants that come to this weekly event.
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For the most part, our crew consists of people that are simply there to have a good time and they don't really care if they do well or not. We do have awards such as two championship belts, but for the most part the entire thing isn't meant to be overly competitive and it certainly was never intended to be something that became confrontational.
I suppose no matter what you do that someone, somewhere, is going to make a problem for it because I was reading the other day about a FB group that is about gardening and the moderator had to shut the entire thing down because massive fights were starting over something like an opinion about soil PH for tomatoes and people started making physical threats towards the other members. You can't do anything these days without some level of trouble starting and we kind of had that happen this past week.
I haven't put any photos and will not name names because I don't want to escalate the situation but let's just say that there were two members who were being competitive towards one another and one of the people took it personally, quit mid game, and left the lanes in a huff. He knew where we were going for the after party and it was an awkward situation because he was actually the recipient of one of the awards because he had bowled pretty well.
He was sitting across the street and refusing to take part in what we were doing because of a squabble over something really trivial that happened at the bowling alley.
When I went to go speak to him he was so angry that he couldn't have a conversation with me about it without shaking. I have a hard time relating to someone that would get that angry over words exchanged while bowling, especially when he had actually WON.
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We've all heard of sore losers and even at DUMBO we have had our share of those sorts of incidents as well. However, this is our first encounter of a sore winner. After I spoke to him for a bit - and I couldn't handle it for very long - he agreed to come back for the silly little ceremony that we have where I give a silly speech about everyone's performance.
At one point in our conversation alone the guy who stormed off said to me that "if this happens again, I am going to attack that guy." To which I responded "and if you do it will be the last time you will be welcome to bowl with us." Which I think is a very fair and diplomatic way for me to have handled that situation.
For the most part I enjoy being the leader of this league even though I very rarely win any of the awards. I come close, but I am always just a little bit short of victory. It does irritate me that there are some people out there that seem to poison the well no matter what they do. The person who was the agitator and the person who was agitated in this situation are both good people and I like them, but for some reason they simply don't get along with one another and this is probably because they are both quite good and I would say they are the 2 best bowlers in the league. It's a shame that they can't just have a friendly rivalry and things have to get so heated seeing as how the entire intention of this league was simply for all of us to get together and have some fun and social time.
I would hate it if I had to disband the group because of petty squabbles like this but at the same time I really don't like having to reprimand adults as if they were children.
I am pretty fantastic at conflict resolution if I am directly involved and I am more than prepared to say "sorry" to someone even if I don't think I was actually wrong. I don't understand why other people are incapable of this. I hope that the two people involved are able to get past this because if they can't things are going to be a bit strange at future meetings and if cliques or group rivalries start to emerge I will have no choice but to do like the admin of the FB gardening page did: Shut the entire thing down.
Since Thursdays are basically the only day of the week where I feel I have something real to look forward to, it would be a real shame if that is what ends up happening.